Film at Lincoln Center Podcast

This week we’re excited to present an NYFF61 Crosscuts conversation between Wang Bing, the director of the NYFF61 Main Slate selection Youth (Spring), and Eduardo Williams, director of the NYFF61 Currents selection, The Human Surge 3. If there are two films from 2023 that might be remembered in the years to come as time capsules of life as we live it today, they are Wang Bing’s Youth (Spring), an NYFF61 Main Slate selection, and Eduardo Williams’s The Human Surge 3, which opens this year’s NYFF Currents lineup. Williams follows up on The Human Surge with a playfully misnumbered sequel that captures the ambulations of a group of young people in three countries—Peru, Taiwan, and Sri Lanka—using a 360-degree camera, giving resonant form to the virtual, cacophonous, and borderless (yet bounded) texture of our contemporary existence. In Youth (Spring), Bing returns to his project of documenting a China transformed by the vagaries of industrialization: Shot across five years within privately run textile workshops in Zhili, which employ swathes of underpaid twentysomethings, Youth (Spring) accumulates a monumental portrait of life shaped by the temporality of ruthless, relentless production. This talk will bring together these two masterful chroniclers of the present for a conversation about their inspirations and influences, their form-bending play with the cinematic medium, and their radical approaches to time and space. All NYFF61 Talks are sponsored by HBO.

Todd Haynes, director of May December, discusses themes of performance and melodrama, choosing locations in Savannah, and the challenges of creating films like 'I'm Not There'. Also, the upcoming adaptation of 'Trust' and favorite movie scores are discussed.

This week we’re excited to present an NYFF61 Crosscut conversation between Annie Baker and Raven Jackson, the directors of two of the most self-assured debut films of the year (Janet Planet and All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, respectively). Covering traits of the coming-of-age genre, writing practices, and non-traditional scripts, Baker and Jackson’s conversation was moderated by NYFF Main Slate Committee member Kameron Austin Collins. Breaking onto the scene with two of the most original and assured feature debuts in recent memory, Baker and Jackson have each crafted tone poems of breathtaking delicacy. With stories that weave together themes of motherhood and coming-of-age with a lush, exquisitely detailed sense of place, Baker and Jackson distill and transpose the singular qualities of their literary work to the cinematic medium. All NYFF61 Talks are sponsored by HBO.

This week we’re excited to present an archival conversation with director Martin Scorsese, whose new film, Killers of the Flower Moon, is currently playing in theaters worldwide courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Apple Original Films.  In this conversation with Scorsese, the director discusses his early '70s masterpiece, Mean Streets, co-starring his Killers of the Flower Moon supporting actor Robert De Niro. De Niro’s lasting partnership with Scorsese began with the filmmaker’s breakthrough third feature, an electrifying and unforgettable depiction of small-time thugs in Little Italy that established much of what was to come in both artists’ careers. Harvey Keitel, an alum of Scorsese’s student feature Who’s That Knocking at My Door?, is Charlie, an aspirant gangster seeking a middle ground between his profession and his efforts to lead a morally upright life. But his irrepressible friend Johnny Boy (De Niro) complicates matters with his anarchic behavior and debts to loan sharks. Raising hell as soon as he arrives on screen, De Niro is entirely at home as Scorsese’s young id of Mulberry Street—equal parts funny, ferocious, and frightening. This conversation was moderated by former NYFF Associate Director of Programming, Scott Foundas.

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with director Rodrigo Moreno, whose new film, The Delinquents, made its U.S. Premiere at the 61st New York Film Festival and is now playing at Film at Lincoln Center. Get tickets now at filmlinc.org/delinquents A heist picture unlike any other, The Delinquents upends genre expectations with a gentle yet deftly constructed existentialist fable. Timid bank clerk Morán , fed up with his dead-end middle-management job, decides one day to simply walk into the vault, pack a bag with enough cash to cover his salary until retirement age, and saunter out. Knowing he has been inevitably caught on security camera, Morán plans on turning himself in, but not before passing the stash along to his coworker Román, now an accomplice who agrees to hold onto the money until Morán gets out of prison. From this gripping premise, Argentinean writer-director Rodrigo Moreno spins an endlessly surprising tale that moves into increasingly idyllic territory, adding layer upon layer to the twinned stories of these two men’s lives, and inquiring what it means to be free in a world of monetary satisfaction. This conversation was moderated by NYFF Advisor Violeta Bava.

On the final daily NYFF61 edition of the FLC podcast, director Frederick Wiseman, the United States’s unrivaled maestro of observational nonfiction, joins us to discuss Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros, a Spotlight selection in this year’s festival, with FLC Senior Director of Programming Florence Almozini. Wiseman brings his camera into a three-star Michelin restaurant in rural central France, and the result is an expansive, delectable, and provocative portrait of the demand for perfection—a surprising but apt subject in Wiseman’s decades-long inquiries into the inner workings of complicated institutions that function with their own rules and standards. A Zipporah Films release. All NYFF61 feature documentaries are presented by HBO.

Ferrari director Michael Mann and cast members Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz, and Gabriel Leone discuss diving deep into projects, the complexities of the Ferrari family, and competitive racing with NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim at the Closing Night press conference. Michael Mann (The Insider) brings his astonishing command of technique and storytelling to bear on this emotional, elegantly crafted dramatization of the life of the legendary car manufacturer and entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari at a professional and personal fulcrum. It’s 1957, and the marriage of Enzo (Adam Driver, in an artfully internalized performance) and Laura (Penélope Cruz, a ferocious revelation) has begun to irrevocably fracture as a result of his philandering and the tragic recent death of their young son. Their unsettled domestic world is on a collision course with his work life as Enzo faces a pair of major turning points: financial pressure to increase productivity, which means going against his long-standing desire to only produce race cars, and preparations for the treacherous cross-country open-road Mille Miglia race. Dovetailing these narrative strands, Mann effortlessly shifts gears between elegiac and spectacular, climaxing in an exhilarating and terrifying race across the Northern Italian landscape—a visual and aural wonder of revving machinery against bucolic splendor—that ranks with the greatest set pieces of Mann’s career. Aided by a magnificent cast, which also includes Shailene Woodley, Gabriel Leone, Patrick Dempsey, and Jack O’Connell, and glorious on-location shooting in Ferrari’s hometown of Modena, Mann has constructed a marvel of classical cinema. A Neon release. NYFF61 Closing Night is presented by Campari.

Director Neo Sora discusses the personal nature of the film showcasing Ryuichi Sakamoto's final performance. The logistics of recording live music and Sakamoto's relationship with cinema are explored. The film captures intimate, melancholy, and achingly beautiful moments as Sakamoto plays haunting melodies on a Yamaha grand piano.

Director Bertrand Bonello discusses the timelessness of Léa Seydoux, slashers, and The Beast, a Main Slate selection in this year’s festival, with NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim. Using Henry James’s haunting 1903 short story “The Beast in the Jungle” as his film’s provocative inspiration, Bertrand Bonello (Nocturama, Coma) has created a dynamic and disturbing parable that jumps between three different time periods (1910, 2014, and 2044) and tells the story of a young woman (Léa Seydoux) who undergoes a surgical process to have her DNA—and therefore memories of all her past lives—removed. A Sideshow/Janus Films release.

On today’s daily NYFF61 podcast, director Annie Baker and lead actresses Julianne Nicholson and Zoe Ziegler discuss Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Baker’s superb debut feature Janet Planet with NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim.  It’s 1991 in rural Western Massachusetts, the summer before Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) starts sixth grade, and she is spending the lazy months with her acupuncturist mother, Janet (Julianne Nicholson), in their home in the woods. As the months drift by, the bespectacled, taciturn girl, fiercely observant, watches Janet and three enigmatic adults who drift in and out of their lives, whether romantic interests or reconnected friends. This work of surreal tranquility moves at a different, lost pace of life, and introduces Ziegler as an incredible new talent. An A24 release. Listen to the Q&A featuring Baker, Nicholson, and Ziegler as they discuss watching the film for the first time, resisting conventions, and the origins of Janet Planet.